Cricket is a soft target for terrorists
Cricket makes for a gruesomely eye-catching target for terrorists because it is high profile and, in their eyes, dangerously decadent, writes Ed Smith in the Times .

AFP
In the terrorist mindset, the effete and Western activity of cricket distracts good Muslims from what they should be doing: praying and executing jihad. In the terrorist imagination, cricket, loved by millions of ordinary Pakistanis, is an emblem of evil Western modernity. An innocent pastime becomes a symbol of hatred.
Sport is already a stage and the world is watching. All a terrorist has to do is alter the script and all the publicity in the world is his to command. I have been through a million metal detectors; my laptop has been X-rayed so often that it glows; my bag has been fumbled with and my crotch groped repeatedly by the uniformed and the charmless; and I know that all this performance is just for the look of the thing and that a professional could get through with anything he liked.
Nishi Narayanan is a staff writer at ESPNcricinfo